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Updated Sunday 21 February, 2010 12:15 PM |
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SNAKE OIL
By Doctor What
Chapter Two
Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy. – Groucho Marx
~~
January 27, 2017
“Traffic looks like a total bitch, Mr. Baldwin.”
“Just do your best to get through it, Harry.”
“Will do, sir!”
Harry gunned the engine of the limo and proceeded to try his best to get through the traffic that was, even by New York City standards, absolutely atrocious.
Michael Baldwin leaned back and glanced through the reports in his hands once again.
As ‘Special Assistant Advisor to the President for Alien/Human Policy Affairs’, he had his work cut out for him. Truth be told, he was pretty much just making up stuff on the fly.
Fortunately, so was everyone else.
Not for the first time, Baldwin wondered just how the hell he ended up in this situation.
He had started off as a fairly standard Midwest teenager. After bumming around for a few years after high school doing various odd jobs, getting drunk on a fairly regular basis and having cheap sleazy sex with cheap sleazy women on an equally regular basis, he decided to join the army -- partly because he had decided he needed to get a bit of discipline into his life but mostly because he needed the money.
9/11 happened three months after he signed up.
He ended up doing a few stints in Afghanistan and having some pretty close calls in numerous firefights, which earned him a few medals and ribbons and a promotion to Staff Sergeant in less than four years.
Then he got transferred to the "Special Warfare Action Group," which, in the age-old tradition of military bureaucracy, was nothing like its name implied.
As of a result of his two years total service in Afghanistan, his rather distinguished combat experience and his fast promotion, the Army decided in its infinite wisdom to send him to Iraq– and then stick him behind a desk doing a seemingly endless and boring series of reports and presentations.
He was fairly certain that in some weird alternate universe, that decision almost made sense.
Almost.
After a few more stints, he was finally good to leave the army in 2007 with the final rank of Sergeant First Class. Not having much else available in his immediate future, he almost immediately reapplied as a ‘private security consultant’ – which involved him doing exactly the same thing he was doing for Uncle Sam but now for three times the salary.
After another stint of that, he decided that any more of this nonsense would destroy what few brain cells he had left. He finally moved back stateside in 2009. He had what was technically known as ‘a shitload’ of cash in his bank account and, with the housing market barely in the process from recovering from the previous year’s meltdown, was able to get himself a rather large home off the beaten track in the wilds of deepest, darkest Pennsylvania at a ridiculously low price.
There he spent the next eighteen months alternating between getting drunk on rather frightening amounts of alcohol, blasting away at various targets in his backyard with a worrisome wide variety of weapons and ascertaining the fellatio expertise of nearly every female college student, stripper or divorcee barfly in a twenty mile radius.
Eventually even this got boring.
Fortunately several friends from his old unit had snagged themselves jobs in various think tanks in the DC area and managed to pull a few strings for him. It came as a total surprise to him that he actually found himself employed only a few weeks later.
Working as a Special Independent Consultant for the ‘Resources for the Future of the New America’ seemed to involve goofing off for six months and then spending six months writing a big-ass report that—by an amazing coincidence—just happened to give the precise answers that the people currently paying the bills wanted to hear.
And so his life went until President McDonald was elected.
It came as a bit of a shock to him to discover that McDonald was his father's uncle's niece's cousin's brother-in-law’s former college roommate. This, in conjunction with his extensive military and consultant experience, apparently made Baldwin the perfect choice as a Special Assistant White House Advisor.
When the Lytasians appeared literally just as he was moving into his new office, Baldwin suddenly found himself with a promotion.
“Oh, for the love of God....” muttered Harry.
Michael glanced up.
For obvious reasons, an emergency session of the United Nations had been organized.
For equally obvious reasons, everything within a ten block radius of the United Nations was now a veritable sea of chaos, confusion and pandemonium.
Off on either side of the limo were about a hundred or so people dressed up in a wide assortment of alien costumes covering the gambit from every Star Trek and Doctor Who character imaginable to stuff straight out of every bad 1950’s science–fiction movie. Music was blaring out of various speakers.
-Well I saw the thing comin' out of the
sky
Baldwin rolled his eyes as the group receded from view—only to sigh deeply as yet another group came into view.
There were about three hundred or so people in white robes standing in rapt attention as another man – this one balding and with a massive white beard and looking like he was in his late sixties or early seventies– was standing on a small pedestal and proselytizing. He was speaking with a heavy French accent.
“-then decided from their distant planet to destroy all life on Earth by sending nuclear missiles. However when the exiled creators were informed of the project they informed Noah to build a spaceship, which will orbit the Earth during the cataclysm containing a pair of each species that was to be preserved –“
“Who are these freaks?” asked Harry as the limo slowly crawled forward, leaving the white robed people behind.
“Raëlians,” muttered Michael.
“That the one those freaks in Hollywood are members of? The one invented by that science fiction writer way back when?”
“Nah—that’s Scientology. These guys believe that aliens created humans through genetic engineering.”
“Can’t keep track of all these nutbar religions coming out of the woodwork,” muttered Harry, as he focused his attention back on the road.
“Unfortunately, it’s part of my job to do so,” replied Baldwin.
Before Contact, the Raëlians were a relatively minor but vaguely amusing group. The only reasons they had even showed up on the radar of any news agencies was the fact that they were one of the larger UFO religions around and that they had claimed to have cloned a human being way back in 2002. They had had only about sixty thousand or so members worldwide pre-Contact—with the vast majority of them being situated in Quebec and France. They were extremely popular among the college aged demographic group –although Michael was fairly certain that this had less to do with their UFO mythology and more to do with the fact that ‘free love’ was one of the main tenets of their religion—with a particular emphasis on bisexuality experimentation, lesbianism, threesomes and wife-swapping.
Now—a mere week after Contact – the Raëlians claimed a membership of over half a million people worldwide—and growing.
“What the hell? Another bunch?” screamed Harry.
Michael looked up.
There were actually two bunches here—each side separated from each other by a some metal fences hastily thrown up by the NYPD and looking warily at each other and giving the occasional dirty look. Their clothing and general demeanor was...interesting – seemingly combining the couture sensibilities of a drag queen with the joi de vivre of a Frisbee-chasing Irish Setter.
“Unarians,” replied Baldwin, anticipating Harry’s next question.
The Unarians made even the Raëlians look normal. They were, in fact, one of the very first ‘Space Aliens will come to save Humanity’ religions created, tracing its origin all the way back to the early 1950’s.
The Unarians had suffered some great upheavals in their religion as of late, however. Although they were ecstatic that the ‘space brothers’ had finally arrived, the problem was that they had arrived in twelve spaceships even though their holy book The Voice of Venus (channeled by telepathy from Mal-Var of Venus through their founder, a psychic/philosopher originally from Scandinavia) had clearly stated that the space brothers that will come to rescue humanity would arrive in thirty-three spaceships.
Unable to reconcile this clear discontinuity in their religion, the Unarian movement had schismed, dividing into the Unarius Academy of Science and the Unarius Reformists. The ‘original’ group believed that the ‘thirty three’ references was essentially some kind of typo and embraced the Lytasians, while the Reformists believed the Lytasians to be ‘false space brothers’ and opposed any alliances with them. There had already been a few ‘incidents’ between the two groups and it appeared that the schism, if anything, would only get worse in the future.
Interestingly – both groups had experienced a massive increase in membership as well, each claiming ‘over a hundred thousand’ members.
The limo slowly crawled forward, leaving the warring factions of the Unarians behind.
Almost immediately, the limo ran into a rather large group of middle-aged individuals, looking like they just stepped out of the Woodstock movie. One blonde lady, grinning and laughing and looking surprisingly attractive for her apparent age of 50 and literally bouncing up and down on the sidewalk, threw rose petals all over Baldwin’s limo as it passed by. Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky was blasting away at near ear-shattering volume.
-go to the place that's the best
Leaving hippy-dippy chick behind, the limo turned onto 42nd Street.
Things were, if anything, even weirder and crazier here.
A priest on one side of the street was standing on a box, shouting into a megaphone. He had what seemed to be a mere handful of loyal supporters and/or converts standing near him, all holding large signs. Most of the signs depicted the classical ‘Grey Alien’ face with a large red X over it, with the slogan ‘Alien Resistance HQ’ next to it. Other signs had ‘Every Knee Shall Bow’ slogan instead. One had ‘Resistance is Fertile’ as a slogan.
The priest’s words drifted over to Baldwin.
“ - say to them, Depart from me into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels! Every knee of every creature in all creation shall bow before Jesus one day, and every tongue confess that He is the Lord of All! Our purpose is to exalt Him, offering you that choice today! These …aliens… are nothing of the sort! These entities are the violent angelic enemies of mankind, whom the church is instructed to wage warfare against - just as Israel was to destroy the hybrid races! The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil –“
The dozen or so members of his audience looked either very bemused or very confused but definitely not convinced.
The limo stopped as a policeman came up to the driver’s side of the car and demanded to see some identification from Harry. Harry dutifully handed over a handful of documents. The cop glanced through them for a few minutes.
Having the documents meet with his approval, he waved the limo forward again, ignoring the screams and shouts from the multitudes standing behind the metal fences along the side of the road.
The limo crawled forward again, leaving ‘Alien Resistance Priest’ behind, still shouting about ‘great deceivers’ and now quoting some choice passages from the Book of Revelation.
“Aw Jeez…” muttered Harry, shaking his head.
Baldwin looked at where Harry was staring—and groaned.
Somebody had goofed. Big time.
There were two groups standing next to each.
One group was waving placards emblazoned with such slogans as ‘USA Forever!’, ‘America # 1!’, ‘USA Kicks Ass!’ and other slogans of similar ilk.
The other group were waving placards emblazoned with such slogans as ‘The World is not for Sale!’, ‘American Imperialism’, ‘The people! united! can never be defeated!’ and one placard that depicted the American flag—but with a swastika in place of the stars.
Needless to say—the two groups were having a few quite animated discussions with each other…
One guy from the anti-America side had his face mere millimeters away from one of the pro-America group, screaming and shouting obscenities. The pro-America guy started shouting in return, shoving him back. The shoving got more violent and suddenly anti-America threw a punch at pro-America, knocking him down. Anti-America started kicking pro-America when several friends of Pro-America lunged over the fences and started attacking Anti-America. Anti-America went down under a flurry of punches, disappearing completely as he was tackled and buried by the whole gang. Anti-America’s friends, incensed at this, attacked in kind. Within seconds there were at least fifty people pounding on each other. As the limo slowly crawled by, Baldwin glanced behind him to see two dozen riot cops, armed with pepper spray, tasers and batons, come running into the fray.
The limo slowly turned onto 1st Avenue and started inching its way into United Nations Plaza.
There were two final protest groups here, one on either side of 1st Avenue.
One group were waving signs reading ‘McDonald #1’, ‘A Super President for a Super-Power’ and others like it.
The other side had ‘McDonald = SELL OUT!’, ‘McDonald is an Alien COLLABORATOR’, and ‘McDonald is NOT my President’ and the like.
The limo came to a stop and Baldwin stepped out and practically ran into the building.
Waiting patiently near the door was a tall, sandy-haired man of roughly the same age as Baldwin.
“Mr. Baldwin? Norton. Edward Norton.”
The two shook hands.
“Glad to meet you,” said Baldwin. “How’s it look in there?”
Norton sighed.
“Will the President re-consider accepting my resignation? Please?”
Baldwin shook his head.
“Sorry Ambassador—you’ve got one more job to do. The President has every confidence in your abilities.”
“Then why did he send you here?” replied Norton, suspiciously.
Baldwin smiled.
“Merely to give you moral and spiritual support!”
Norton sighed again. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned around and walked down the corridor.
Baldwin followed him.
General Assembly Chamber
“The Chair recognizes the ambassador from Venezuela!”
The Venezuelan Ambassador stood up and faced the assembled crowd.
He didn’t waste any time getting to his point.
“How DARE do the Americans and their puppet collaborators in Europe with-hold the disease cures from the rest of the world! Are we to be nothing but their slaves, forced to work on their behalf so that we may live?”
There were a large number of boos and catcalls from the assembled group.
There was also quite a few yells of acknowledgement and agreement.
“If I may address the honorable member’s concerns?” asked Norton, standing up.
“I believe that my honorable colleague here is mistaken. Let me restate for the record the US and its allies position on the disease cures. Not counting the cures that were obtained by Russia, we have a total of sixty-two cures. A grand coalition of the nations of the US, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries have decided to band together and distribute the cures–with the assistance of various departments of this august body, Madame Secretary-General – to all of the under-developed nations of the world. Indeed, we see this as akin to the great success of the smallpox eradication. The governments will be distributing the cures for free. Not one single penny would be required or asked for. We see this as our moral and ethical duty to the rest of – “
“And what about the rest of the world?!” screamed another man, standing up.
“Point of order! Point of order!”
“I demand to make my statement, Madame Secretary-General!”
“Very well—the chair recognizes the ambassador from Brazil.”
“You say that you will distribute the cures to the so-called ‘under-developed world’ for free. What about the developing nations? Are we to buy the cures from you?”
“As stated, we will be distributing the cures for free to those who are unable to pay for it. The governments of the developing nations will be required to pay only a very small –“
The chamber erupted into near-pandemonium.
The ambassador from Algeria, screaming in Arabic, rushed towards the French ambassador and started waving his finger in his face, still shouting. The French ambassador shouted something in reply, the Algerian screamed something back and then the two collapsed to the floor, trading punches.
Several of their colleagues rushed in, pulling the two apart. The would be rescuers immediately started shouting at each other however; their voices began to slowly rise and one or two of them started getting red-faced with anger…
“What did the Algerian guy say?” hissed Norton, turning towards Baldwin. “Only got bits and pieces of it. Something about the French ambassador’s mother’s vagina being well-visited on a regular basis by less than hygienically inclined sailors…”
“Oh God….” moaned the American ambassador.
“Then the French ambassador replied,” continued Baldwin, ignoring the moaning from Norton, “ with something about performing oral sex, although I’m not sure whether the Algerian ambassador was to perform the oral sex on the French ambassador or on himself. I’m afraid my French is a bit rusty…”
“Oh God….” moaned the American ambassador.
Eventually something resembling order was brought in. Baldwin noticed that the Algerian and French ambassadors had left.
There was more shouting.
Norton looked for the source of the shouting—and groaned.
So did Baldwin.
“The Chair recognizes the ambassador from China!”
“We are appalled and shocked and insulted at this treatment of us! The Western world obtained a wide variety of cures from the aliens and magnanimously have decided to share them with the rest of the world. But they also obtained a wide assortment of space and weapon and energy technology as well! Do we see them sharing THOSE technologies with the rest of the world? NO! They give a few baubles to the rest of the world and yet they keep the mechanisms of power and control for themselves! We, the People’s Republic of China, will not stand by and watch the freedom-loving people of the world be oppressed!—“
“I think my chutzpah meter just exploded,” muttered Baldwin under his breath—but not so low that Norton couldn’t hear. Norton tried—unsuccessfully—to suppress a snort of laughter.
“--We demand that the technology be shared and given freely to the rest of the world!”
There were a lot more cheers than boos this time.
Norton stood up.
“Mr. Ambassador, please! As stated before, we will be more than willing to share the information if certain conditions are met and on a case by case –“
“NO! No ‘conditions’! Will you share this technology freely and without any constraints? Yes or no—don’t wait for the translation!—yes or no?”
“Mr. Ambassador—please! Let me explain our –“
The Chinese ambassador waved his hand, cutting off Norton.
“I will not stand by and listen to your talent for obfuscation, for distortion, for confusing language, and for doubletalk! We are appalled that this body, of which we have been a member of for so long, will treat us as such! I call upon our allies and friends to show their disdain for these proceedings by following my lead in solidarity!”
And with that, the representative of China got up and walked out the room.
A few moments later, the representatives of North Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela and over a dozen other countries walked out as well, ignoring the gasps of shock and boos from their colleagues.
Norton sighed deeply, burying his head in his hands.
Baldwin felt sorry for the ambassador and decided that he needed to say something to cheer him up.
“Actually—that went better than I was expecting, to be honest.”
Norton started crying….
~~
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